The two girls rode into the melting darkness of the night, and once out of the radiance of the campfires became suddenly appreciative of the subdued sounds arising from the far-extending valley in which the herd lay.
At a great distance a coyote howled in mournful cadence. There was the uncertain movements of the cattle on the riders’ left hand—here one lapped its body with its great tongue—again horns clashed—then a big steer staggered to its feet and blew through its nostrils a great sigh. There was, too, the steady chewing of many, many cuds.
A large part of the herd was lying down. Although stars flecked the sky quite thickly the whole valley in which the cattle fed seemed over-mantled with a pall of blackness. Shapes loomed through this with sudden, uncertain outline.
“My! it’s shivery, isn’t it?” whispered Ruth.
“There won’t nothing bite us,” chuckled the Western girl. “Huh! what’s that?”
The sudden change in her voice made Ruth giggle nervously. “That’s somebody riding ahead of us.You’renot afraid, Nita?”
“Well, I should say not!” cried the other, very boldly. “It’s one of the boys. Hello, Darcy! I thought you were a ghost.”
“You gals better git back to the camp,” grunted the cowboy. “We’re going to have a shower later. I feel it in the air.”
“We’re neither sugar nor salt,” declared Jane Ann. “We’ve both got slickers on our saddles.”
“Ridin’ herd at night ain’t no job for gals,” said Darcy. “And that cloud yander is goin’ ter spit lightnin’.”
“He’s always got a grouch about something. I never did like old Darcy,” Jane Ann confided to her friend.
But there was a general movement and confusion in the herd before the girls had ridden two miles. The cattle smelled the storm coming and, now and then, a faint flash of lightning penciled the upper edge of the cloud that masked the Western horizon.
“’Tain’t going to amount to anything,” declared Jane Ann.
“It just looks like heat lightning,” agreed Ruth.
“May not rain at all to-night,” pursued the other girl, cheerfully.
“Who’s that yelling?” queried Ruth, suddenly.
“Huh! that’s somebody singing.”
“Singing?”
“Yep.”
“Way out here?”
“Yep. It’s Fred English, I guess. And he’s no Caruso.”
“But what’s he singing for?” demanded the disturbed Ruth, for the sounds that floated to their ears were mournful to a degree.
“To keep the cattle quiet,” explained the ranch girl. “Singing often keeps the cows from milling——”
“Milling?” repeated Ruth.
“That’s when they begin to get uneasy, and mill around and around in a circle. Cows are just as foolish as a flock of hens.”
“But you don’t mean to say the boys sing ’em to sleep?” laughed Ruth.
“Something like that. It often keeps ’em quiet. Lets ’em know there’s humans about.”
“Why, I really thought he must be making that noise to keep himself from feeling lonely,” chuckled Ruth.
“Nobody’d want to do that, you know,” returned Jane Ann, with seriousness. “Especially when they can’t sing no better than that Fred English.”
“It is worse than a mourning dove,” complained thegirl from the East. “Why doesn’t he try something a bit livelier?”
“You don’t want to whistle a jig-tune to keep cows quiet,” Jane Ann responded, sagely.
The entire herd seemed astir now. There was a sultriness in the air quite unfamiliar on the range. The electricity still glowed along the horizon; but it seemed so distant that the girls much doubted Darcy’s prophecy of rain.
The cattle continued to move about and crop the short herbage. Few of them remained “bedded down.” In the distance another voice was raised in song. Ruth’s mount suddenly jumped to one side, snorting. A huge black steer rose up and blew a startled blast through his nostrils.
“Gracious! I thought that was a monster rising out of the very earth! And so did Freckles, I guess,” cried Ruth, with some nervousness. “Whoa, Freckles! Whoa, pretty!”
“You sing, too, Ruthie,” advised her friend. “We don’t want to start some foolish steer to running.”
The Eastern girl’s sweet voice—clear and strong—rang out at once and the two girls rode on their way. The movement of the herd showed that most of the cattle had got upon their feet; but there was no commotion.
As they rode around the great herd they occasionally passed a cowboy riding in the other direction, whohailed them usually with some witticism. But if Ruth chanced to be singing, they broke off their own refrains and applauded the girl’s effort.
Once a coyote began yapping on the hillside near at hand, as Ruth and Jane Ann rode. The latter jerked out the shiny gun that swung at her belt and fired twice in the direction of the brute’s challenge.
“That’ll scarehim,” she explained. “They’re a nuisance at calving time.”
Slowly, but steadily, the cloud crept up the sky and snuffed out the light of the stars. The lightning, however, only played at intervals, with the thunder muttering hundreds of miles away, in the hills.
“It is going to rain, Nita,” declared Ruth, with conviction.
“Well, let’s put the rubber blankets over us, and be ready for it,” said the ranch girl, cheerfully. “We don’t want to go in now and have the boys laugh at us.”
“Of course not,” agreed Ruth.
Jane Ann showed her how to slip the slicker over her head. Its folds fell all about her and, as she rode astride, she would be well sheltered from the rain if it began to fall. They were now some miles from the camp on the river bank, but had not as yet rounded the extreme end of theherd. The grazing range of the cattle covered practically the entire valley.
The stirring of the herd had grown apace and even in the thicker darkness the girls realized that most of the beasts were in motion. Now and then a cow lowed; steers snorted and clashed horns with neighboring beeves. The restlessness of the beasts was entirely different from those motions of a grazing herd by day.
Something seemed about to happen. Nature, as well as the beasts, seemed to wait in expectation of some startling change. Ruth could not fail to be strongly impressed by this inexplicable feeling.
“Something’s going to happen, Nita. I feel it,” she declared.
“Hark! what’s that?” demanded her companion, whose ears were the sharper.
A mutter of sound in the distance made Ruth suggest: “Thunder?”
“No, no!” exclaimed Jane Ann.
Swiftly the sound approached. The patter of ponies’ hoofs—a crowd of horses were evidently charging out of a nearby coulie into the open plain.
“Wild horses!” gasped Jane Ann.
But even as she spoke an eerie, soul-wracking chorus of shrieks broke the oppressive stillness of the night. Such frightful yells Ruth had neverheard before—nor could she, for the moment, believe that they issued from the lips of human beings!
“Injuns!” ejaculated Jane Ann and swung her horse about, poising the quirt to strike. “Come on——”
Her words were drowned in a sudden crackle of electricity—seemingly over their very heads. They were blinded by the flash of lightning which, cleaving the cloud at the zenith, shot a zigzag stream of fire into the midst of the cattle!
Momentarily Ruth gained a view of the thousands of tossing horns. A chorus of bellowing rose from the frightened herd.
But Jane Ann recovered her self-confidence instantly. “It’s nothing but a joke, Ruthie!” she cried, in her friend’s ear. “That’s some of the boys riding up and trying to frighten us. But there, that’s no joke!”
Another bolt of lightning and deafening report followed. The cowboys’ trick was a fiasco. There was serious trouble at hand.
“The herd is milling!” yelled Jane Ann. “Sing again, Ruthie! Ride close in to them and sing! We must keep them from stampeding if we can!” and she spurred her own pony toward the bellowing, frightened steers.
Be it said of the group of thoughtless cowboys (of whom were the wildest spirits of Number Two camp) that their first demonstration as they dashed out of the coulie upon the two girls was their only one. Their imitation of an Indian attack was nipped in the bud by the bursting of the electric storm. There was no time for the continuance of the performance arranged particularly to startle Jane Ann and Ruth Fielding. Ruth forgot the patter of the approaching ponies. She had instantly struck into her song—high and clear—at her comrade’s advice; and she drew Freckles closer to the herd. The bellowing and pushing of the cattle betrayed their position in any case; but the intermittent flashes of lightning clearly revealed the whole scene to the agitated girls.
They were indeed frightened—the ranch girl as well as Ruth herself. The fact that this immense herd, crowding and bellowing together, might at any moment break into a mad stampede, was only too plain.
Caught in the mass of maddened cattle, thegirls might easily be unseated and trampled to death. Ruth knew this as well as did the Western girl. But if the sound of the human voice would help to keep the creatures within bounds, the girl from the Red Mill determined to sing on and ride closer in line with the milling herd.
She missed Jane Ann after a moment; but another flash of lightning revealed her friend weaving her pony in and out through the pressing cattle, using the quirt with free hand on the struggling steers and breaking them up into small groups.
The cowboys who had dashed out of the coulie saw the possibility of disaster instantly; and they, too, rode in among the bellowing steers. With so many heavy creatures pressing toward a common center, many would soon be crushed to death if the formation was not broken up. Each streak of lightning which played athwart the clouds added to the fear of the beasts. Several of the punchers rode close along the edge of the herd, driving in the strays. Now it began to rain, and as the very clouds seemed to open and empty the water upon the thirsty land, the swish of it, and the moaning of the wind that arose, added greatly to the confusion.
How itdidrain for a few minutes! Ruth felt as though she were riding her pony beneath some huge water-spout. She was thankful for theslicker, off which the water cataracted. The pony splashed knee-deep through runlets freshly started in the old buffalo paths. Here and there a large pond of water gleamed when the lightning lit up their surroundings.
And when the rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun, the cattle began to steam and were more troublesome than before. The lightning flashes and thunder continued, and when a second downpour of rain began it came so viciously, and with so great a wind, that the girls could scarcely ride against it.
Suddenly a shout came down the wind. It was taken up and repeated by voice after voice. The camp at the far end of the herd had been aroused ere this, of course, and every man who could ride was in the saddle. But it was at the camp-end of the herd, after all, that the first break came.
“They’re off!” yelled Darcy, riding furiously past Ruth and Jane Ann toward where the louder disturbance had arisen.
“And toward the river!” shouted another of the cowboys.
The thunder of hoofs in the distance suddenly rose to a deafening sound. The great herd had broken away and were tearing toward the Rolling River at a pace which nothing could halt. Several of the cowboys were carried forward on the fore-front of the wave of maddened cattle; butthey all managed to escape before the leaders reached the high bank of the stream.
Jane Ann screamed some order to Ruth, but the latter could not hear what it was. Yet she imitated the Western girl’s efforts immediately. No such tame attempts at controlling the cattle as singing to them was now in order. The small number of herdsmen left at this point could only force their ponies into the herd and break up the formation—driving the mad brutes back with their quirts, and finally, after a most desperate fight, holding perhaps a third of the great herd from running wildly into the stream.
This had been a time of some drought and the river was running low. The banks were not only steep upon this side, but they were twenty feet and more high. When the first of the maddened beeves reached the verge of the bank they went headlong down the descent, and some landed at the edge of the water with broken limbs and so were trampled to death. But the plunging over of hundreds upon hundreds of steers at the same point, together with the washing of the falling rain, quickly cut down these banks until they became little more than steep quagmires in which the beasts wallowed more slowly to the river’s edge.
This heavy going did more than aught else to retard the stampede; but many of the first-comers got over the shallow river and climbed upon theplain beyond. All night long the cowboys were gathering up the herd upon the eastern shore of the river; those that had crossed must be left until day dawned.
And a very unpleasant night it was, although the stampede itself had been of short duration. A troop of cattle had dashed through the camp and flattened out the tent that had sheltered the lady visitors. Fortunately the said visitors had taken refuge in the supply wagon before the cattle had broken loose.
But, led by The Fox, there was much disturbance in the supply wagon for the time being. Fortunately a water-tight tarpaulin had kept the girls comparatively dry; but Mary Cox loudly expressed her wish that they had not come out to the camp, and the other girls were inclined to be a little fractious as well.
When Jane Ann and Ruth rode in, however, after the trouble was all over, and the rain had ceased, a new fire was built and coffee made, and the situation took on a more cheerful phase. Ruth was quite excited over it all, but glad that she had taken a hand in the herding of the cattle that had not broken away.
“And if you stay to help the boys gather the steers that got across the river, to-morrow, I am going to help, too,” she declared.
“Tom and Bob will help,” Helen said. “Iwish I was as brave as you are, Ruth; but I really am afraid of these horned beasts.”
“I never was cut out for even a milkmaid, myself,” added Heavy. “When a cow bellows it makes me feel queer up and down my spine just as it does when I go to a menagerie and hear the lions roar.”
“They won’t bite you,” sniffed Jane Ann.
“But they can hook you. And my! the noise they made when they went through this camp! You never heard the like,” said the stout girl, shaking her head. “No. I’m willing to start back for the ranch-house in the morning.”
“Me, too,” agreed Madge.
So it was agreed that the four timid girls should return to Silver Ranch with Ricarde after breakfast; but Ruth and Jane Ann, with Tom Cameron and Bob Steele, well mounted on fresh ponies, joined the gang of cow punchers who forded the river at daybreak to bring in the strays.
The frightened cattle were spread over miles of the farther plain and it was a two days’ task to gather them all in. Indeed, on the second evening the party of four young folk were encamped with Jib Pottoway and three of the other punchers, quite twenty miles from the river and in a valley that cut deeply into the mountain chain which sheltered the range from the north and west.
“It is over this way that the trail runs to Tintacker, doesn’t it, Jib?” Ruth asked the Indian, privately.
“Yes, Miss. Such trail as there is can be reached in half an hour from this camp.”
“Oh! I do so want to see that man who killed the bear, Jib,” urged the girl from the Red Mill.
“Well, it might be done, if he’s over this way now,” returned Jib, thoughtfully. “He is an odd stick—that’s sure. Don’t know whether he’d let himself be come up with. But——”
“Will you ride with me to the mines?” demanded Ruth, eagerly.
“I expect I could,” admitted the Indian.
“I would be awfully obliged to you.”
“I don’t know what Mr. Hicks would say. But the cattle are in hand again—and there’s less than a hundred here for the bunch to drive back. They can get along without me, I reckon.”
“And surely without me!” laughed Ruth.
And so it was arranged. The Indian and Ruth were off up the valley betimes the next morning, while the rest of the party started for the river, driving the last of the stray beeves ahead of them.
Jane Ann and Tom Cameron had both offered to accompany Ruth; but for a very good—if secret—reason Ruth did not wish any of her young friends to attend her at the meeting which she hoped would occur between her and the strange young man who (if report were true) had been hanging about the Tintacker properties for so long.
She had written Uncle Jabez after her examination with the lawyer of the mining record books at Bullhide; but she had told her uncle only that the claims had been transferred to the name of “John Cox.” That was the name, she knew, that the vacuum cleaner agent had given Uncle Jabez when he had interested the miller in the mine. But there was another matter in connection with the name of “Cox” which Ruth feared would at once become public property if any of her young friends were present at the interview to which she now so eagerly looked forward.
Freckles, now as fresh as a pony could be, carriedRuth rapidly up the valley, and as the two ponies galloped side by side the girl from the Red Mill grew quite confidential with the Indian. She did not like Jib Pottoway as she did the foreman of the Bar Cross Naught ranch; but the Indian was intelligent and companionable, and he quite evidently put himself out to be entertaining.
As he rode, dressed in his typical cowboy costume, Jib looked the full-blooded savage he was; but his conversation smacked of the East and of his experiences at school. What he said showed that Uncle Sam does very well by his red wards at Carlisle.
Jib could tell her, too, much that was interesting regarding the country through which they rode. It was wild enough, and there was no human habitation in sight. Occasionally a jackrabbit crossed their trail, or a flock of birds flew whirring from the path before them. Of other life there was none until they had crossed the first ridge and struck into a beaten path which Jib declared was the old pack-trail to Tintacker.
The life they then saw did not encourage Ruth to believe that this was either a safe or an inhabited country. Freckles suddenly shied as they approached a bowlder which was thrust out of the hillside beside the trail. Ruth was almost unseated, for she had been riding carelessly. And when she raised her eyes and saw the object thathad startled the pony, she was instantly frightened herself.
Crouching upon the summit of the rock was a lithe, tawny creature with a big, round, catlike head and flaming green eyes. The huge cat lashed its tail with evident rage and bared a very savage outfit of teeth.
“Oh! what’s that?” gasped Ruth, as Freckles settled back upon his haunches and showed very plainly that he had no intention of passing the bowlder.
“Puma,” returned the Indian, laconically.
His mount, too, was circling around the rock with mincing steps, quite as unfavorably disposed toward the beast as was Freckles.
“Can it leap this far, Jib?” cried Ruth.
“It’ll leap a whole lot farther in just a minute,” returned the Indian, taking the rope off his saddle bow. “Now, look out, Miss!”
Freckles began to run backward. The puma emitted a sudden, almost human shriek, and the muscles upon its foreshoulders swelled. It was about to leap.
Jib’s rope circled in the air. Even as the puma left the rock, its four paws all “spraddled out” in midair, the noose dropped over the savage cat. The lariat caught the puma around its neck and one foreleg, and before it struck the ground Jib had whirled his horse and was spurring off acrossthe valley, his captive flying in huge (but involuntary) leaps behind him. He rode back in ten minutes with a beaten-out mass of fur and blood trailing at the end of his rope, and that was the end of Mr. Puma!
“There isn’t any critter a puncher hates worse than a puma,” Jib said, gruffly. “We’ve killed a host of ’em this season.”
“And do you always rope them?” queried Ruth.
“They ain’t worth powder and shot. Now, a bear is a gentleman ‘side of a lion—and even a little old kiote ain’t so bad. The lion’s so blamed crafty and sly. Ha! it always does me good to rope one of them.”
They rode steadily on the trail to the mines after that. It was scarcely more than fifteen miles to the claims which had been the site, some years before, of a thriving mining camp, but was now a deserted town of tumble-down shanties, corrugated iron shacks, and the rustied skeletons of machinery at the mouths of certain shafts. Money had been spent freely by individuals and corporations in seeking to develop the various “leads” believed by the first prospectors to be hidden under the surface of the earth at Tintacker. But if the silver was there it was so well hidden that most of the miners had finally “gone broke” attempting to uncover the riches of silver oreof which the first specimens discovered had given promise.
“The Tintacker Lode” it had been originally called, in the enthusiasm of its discoverers. But unless this strange prospector, who had hung about the abandoned claims for so many months, had struck into a new vein, the silver horde had quite “petered out.” Of this fact Ruth was pretty positive from all the lawyer and Old Bill Hicks had told her. Uncle Jabez had gone into the scheme of re-opening the Tintacker on the strength of the vacuum-cleaner agent’s personality and some specimens of silver ore that might have been dug a thousand miles from the site of the Tintacker claims.
“Don’t look like there was anybody to home,” grunted Jib Pottoway, as they rode up the last rise to the abandoned camp.
“Why! it’s a wreck,” gasped Ruth.
“You bet! There’s hundreds of these little fly-by-night mining camps in this here Western country. And many a man’s hopes are buried under the litter of those caved-in roofs. Hullo!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Ruth, startled as she saw Jib draw his gun suddenly.
“What’s that kiote doing diggin’ under that door?” muttered the Indian.
The skulking beast quickly disappeared and Jib did not fire. He rode his pony directly to theshack—one of the best of the group—and hammered on the door (which was closed) with the butt of his pistol.
“Hullo, in there!” he growled.
Ruth was not a little startled. “Why was the coyote trying to get in?” she asked.
“You wait out here, Miss,” said Jib. “Don’t come too close. Kiotes don’t usually try to dig into a camp when the owner’s at home.”
“But you spoke as though you thought he might be there!” whispered the girl.
“I—don’t—know,” grunted Jib, climbing out of his saddle.
He tried the latch. The door swung open slowly. Whatever it was he expected to see in the shack, he was disappointed. When he had peered in for half a minute, he stuck the pistol back into its holster and strode over the threshhold.
“Oh! what is it?” breathed Ruth again.
He waved her back, but went into the hut. There was some movement there; then a thin, babbling voice said something that startled Ruth more than had the puma’s yell.
“Gee!” gasped Jib, appearing in the doorway, his face actually pale under its deep tan. “It’s the ‘bug’.”
“The man I want to see?” cried Ruth.
“But you can’t see him. Keep away,” advised Jib, steppingsoftly out and closing the door of the shack.
“What is the matter, Jib?” cried Ruth. “He—he isn’tdead?”
“Not yet,” replied the Indian.
“What is it, then?”
“Mountain fever—or worse. It’s catching—just as bad as typhoid. You mustn’t go in there, Miss.”
“But—but—he’ll die!” cried the girl, all her sympathy aroused. “Nobody to help him——”
“He’s far gone. It’s a desperate case, I tell you,” growled Jib. “Ugh! I don’t know what we’d better do. No wonder that kiote was trying to dig under the door.He knew—the hungry beast!”
Ruth waited for her companion to suggest their course of action. The man she had come to see—the mysterious individual whom she believed had taken her uncle’s money to buy up the property known as the Tintacker Claim—was in a raging fever in that old shack near the site of the mine. She had heard his delirious babblings while Jib was in the hut. It never entered her mind that Jib would contemplate leaving the unfortunate creature unattended.
“You can’t talk to him, Miss. He don’t know nothing,” declared the Indian. “And he’s pretty far gone.”
“What shall we do for him? What needs doing first?” Ruth demanded.
“Why, we can’t do much—as I can see,” grumbled Jib Pottoway.
“Isn’t there a doctor——”
“At Bullhide,” broke in Jib. “That’s the nearest.”
“Then he must be got. We must save this man, Jib,” said the girl, eagerly.
“Save him?”
“Certainly. If only because he saved my life when I was attacked by the bear. And he must be saved for another reason, too.”
“Why, Miss Ruth, he’ll be dead long before a doctor could get here,” cried Jib. “That’s plumb ridiculous.”
“He will die of course if he has no attention,” said the girl, indignantly.
“Well?”
“Surely you won’t desert him!”
“About all we can do for the poor fellow is to bury him,” muttered Jib.
“If there was no other reason than that he is a helpless fellow-being, we could not go away and leave him here unattended,” declared the girl, gravely. “You know that well enough, Jib.”
“Oh, we’ll wait around. But he’s got to die. He’s so far gone that nothing can save him. And I oughtn’t to go into the shack, either. That fever is contagious, and he’s just full of it!”
“We must get help for him,” cried Ruth, suddenly.
“What sort of help?” demanded the Indian.
“Why, the ranch is not so awfully far away, and I know that Mr. Hicks keeps a big stock of medicines. He will have something for this case.”
“Then let’s hustle back,” said Jib, starting to climb into his saddle.
“But the coyote—and other savage beasts!” exclaimed Ruth.
“Gee! I forgot that,” muttered Jib.
“One of us must stay here.”
“Well—I can do that, I suppose. But how about you finding your way to the Rolling River outfit? I—don’t—know.”
“I’ll stay here and watch,” declared Ruth, firmly. “You ride for help—get medicine—tell Mr. Hicks to send for a doctor at Bullhide, too. I have some money with me and I know my Uncle Jasper will pay whatever it costs to get a doctor to this man. Besides—there are other people interested.”
“Why, Miss, I don’t know about this,” murmured Jib Pottoway. “It’s risky to leave you here. Old Bill will be wild at me.”
“I’m going to stay right here,” declared Ruth, getting out of the saddle. “You can leave me your gun if you will——”
“Sure! I could do that. But I don’t know what the boss’ll say.”
“It won’t much matter what he says,” said Ruth, with a faint smile. “I shall be here and he will be at Silver Ranch.”
“Ugh!” muttered Jib. “But what’ll he say tome?”
“I believe Mr. Hicks is too good-hearted to wish to know that we left this unfortunate youngman here without care. It would be too cruel.”
“You wait till I look about the camp,” muttered Jib, without paying much attention to Ruth’s last remark.
He left his pony and walked quickly up the overgrown trail that had once been the main street of Tintacker Camp. Ruth slipped out of the saddle and ran to the door of the sick man’s hut. She laid her hand on the latch, hesitated a moment, and then pushed the door open. There was plenty of light in the room. The form on the bed, under a tattered old blanket, was revealed. Likewise the flushed, thin face lying against the rolled-up coat for a pillow.
“The poor fellow!” gasped Ruth. “And suppose it should beherbrother! Suppose itshouldbe!”
Only for a few seconds did she stare in at the unfortunate fellow. His head began to roll from side to side on the hard pillow. He muttered some gibberish as an accompaniment to his fevered dreams. It was a young face Ruth saw, but so drawn and haggard that it made her tender heart ache.
“Water! water!” murmured the cracked lips of the fever patient.
“Oh! I can’t stand this!” gasped the girl. She wheeled about and sent a long shout after Jib: “Jib! I say, Jib!”
“What’s wantin’?” replied the Indian from around the bend in the trail.
“Bring some water! Get some fresh water somewhere.”
“I get you!” returned the cowboy, and then, without waiting another instant, Ruth stepped into the infected cabin and approached the sufferer’s couch.
The sick man’s head moved incessantly; so did his lips. Sometimes what he said was audible; oftener it was just a hoarse murmur. But when Ruth raised his head tenderly and took out the old coat to refold it for a pillow, he screamed aloud and seized the garment with both hands and with an awful strength! His look was maniacal. There were flecks of foam on his lips and his eyes rolled wildly. There was more than ordinary delirium in his appearance, and he fought for possession of the coat, shrieking in a cracked voice, the sound of which went straight to Ruth’s heart.
The sound brought Jib on the run.
“What in all tarnation are you doing in that shack?” he shouted. “You come out o’ there!”
“Oh, Jib,” said she, as the man fell back speechless and seemingly lifeless on the bed. “We can’t leave him alone like this.”
“That whole place is infected. You come out!” the puncher commanded.
“There’s no use scolding me now, Jib,” shesaid, softly. “The harm is done, if itisto be done. I’m in here, and I mean to stay with him till you get help and medicine.”
“You—you——”
“Don’t call me names, but get the water. Find a pail somewhere. Bring plenty of cool water. He is burning up with fever and thirst.”
“Well, the hawse is stole, I reckon!” grunted the Indian. “But you’d ought to be shaken. What the boss says to me about this will be a-plenty.”
“Get the water, Jib!” commanded Ruth Fielding. “See! he breathes so hard. I believe he is dying of thirst more than anything else.”
Jib grabbed the canteen that swung at the back of his saddle, emptied the last of the stale water on the ground, and hurried away to where a thin stream tumbled down the hillside behind one of the old shaft openings. He brought the canteen back full—and it held two quarts.
“Just a little at first,” said the girl, pouring some of the cool water into her own folding cup that she carried in her pocket. “He mustn’t have too much. And you keep out of the house, Jib. No use in both of us running the risk of catching the fever. You’ll have to ride for help, too. And you don’t want to take the infection among the other boys.”
“Youarea plucky one, Miss,” admitted thecowboy. “But there’s bound to be the piper to pay for this. They’ll say it was my fault.”
“I won’t let ’em,” declared Ruth. She raised the sick man’s head again and put the cup to his lips. “I wish I had some clean cloths. Oh! let somebody ride over from the camp with food and any stimulants that there may be there. See if you can find some larger receptacle for water before you go.”
“She’s a cleaner!” muttered the Indian, shaking his head, and walking away to do her bidding.
Ruth had the old coat folded and under the sick man’s head again when Jib returned with a rusty old bucket filled with water. He set it down just outside the open door of the cabin—and he did not come in.
“What d’ye s’pose he’s got in the pocket of that coat that he’s so choice of, Miss?” he asked, curiously.
“Why! I don’t know,” returned Ruth, wetting her cleanest handkerchief and folding it to press upon the patient’s brow.
“He hollered like a loon and grabbed at it when I tried to straighten it out,” the Indian said, thoughtfully. “And so he did when you touched it.”
“Yes.”
“He’s got something hid there. It bothers him even if he is delirious.”
“Perhaps,” admitted Ruth.
But she was not interested in this suspicion. The condition of the poor fellow was uppermost in her mind.
“You let me have your pistol, Jib,” she said. “I can use it. It will keep that old coyote away.”
“And anything else, too,” said Jib, handing the gun to her and then stepping back to his pony. “I’ll hobble your critter, Miss. Don’t go far from the door. I’ll either come back myself or send a couple of the boys from camp. They will bring food, anyway. I reckon the poor chap’s hungry as well as thirsty.”
“He is in a very bad way, indeed,” returned Ruth, gravely. “You’ll hurry, Jib?”
“Sure. But you’d better come back with me.”
“No. I’m in for it now,” she replied, trying to smile at him bravely. “I’d better nurse him till he’s better, or——”
“You ain’t got no call to do it!” exclaimed the Indian.
“There is more reason for my helping him than you know,” she said, in a low voice. “Oh! there is a very good reason for my helping him.”
“He’s too far gone to be helped much, I reckon,” returned the other, mounting into his saddle. “But I’ll be going. Take care of yourself.”
“I’ll be all right, Jib!” she responded, with more cheerfulness, and waved her hand to him as the cow puncher rode away.
But when the patter of the pony’s hoofs had died away the silence brooding over the abandoned miningcamp seemed very oppressive indeed. It was not a pleasant prospect that lay before her. Not only was she alone here with the sick man, but shewasafraid of catching the fever.
The patient on the couch was indeed helpless. He muttered and rolled his head from side to side, and his wild eyes stared at her as though he were fearful of what she might do to him. Ruth bathed his face and hands again and again; and the cool water seemed to quiet him. Occasionally she raised his head that he might drink. There was nothing else she could do for his comfort or betterment until medicines arrived.
She searched the cabin for anything which might belong to him. She did not find his rifle—the weapon with which he had killed the bear in the cañon when Ruth had been in such peril. She did find, however, a worn water-proof knapsack; in it was a handkerchief, or two, a pair of torn socks and an old shirt, beside shaving materials, a comb and brush, and a toothbrush. Not a letter or a scrap of paper to reveal his identity. Yet she was confident that this was the man whom she had hoped to meet when she came West on this summer jaunt.
This was the fellow who had encouraged Uncle Jabez to invest his savings in the Tintacker Mine. It was he, too, who had been to Bullhide and recorded the new papers relating to the claim.And if he had made way with all Uncle Jabez’s money, and the mining property was worthless, Ruth knew that she would never see Briarwood Hall again!
For Uncle Jabez had let her understand plainly that his resources were so crippled that she could not hope to return to school with her friends when the next term opened. Neither she, nor Aunt Alvirah, nor anybody else, could make the old miller change his mind. He had given her one year at the boarding school according to agreement. Uncle Jabez always did just as he said he would; but he was never generous, and seldom even kind.
However, it was not this phase of the affair that so troubled the girl from the Red Mill. It was the identity of this fever-stricken man that so greatly disturbed her. She believed that there was somebody at Silver Ranch who must have a much deeper interest in him than even she felt. And she was deeply troubled by this suspicion. Was she doing right in not sending word to the ranch at once as to her belief in the identity of the man?
The morning was now gone and Ruth would have been glad of some dinner; but in leaving the other herders she and Jib had not expected to remain so many hours from the Rolling River crossing. At least, they expected if they found the man at Tintacker at all, that he would haveplayed the host and supplied them with lunch. Had Jib been here she knew he could easily have shot a bird, or a hare; there was plenty of small game about. But had she not felt it necessary to remain in close attendance upon the sick man she would have hesitated about going to the outskirts of the camp. Even the possession of Jib’s loaded pistol did not make the girl feel any too brave.
Already that morning she had been a witness to the fact that savage beasts lurked in the locality. There might be another puma about. She was not positively in fear of the coyotes; she knew them to be a cowardly clan. But what would keep a bear from wandering down from the heights into the abandoned camp? And Ruth had seen quite all the bears at close quarters that she wished to see. Beside, this six-shooter of Jib’s would be a poor weapon with which to attack a full-grown bear.
It must be late in the afternoon before any of the boys could ride over from the Rolling River outfit. She set her mind firmly onthat, and would not hope for company till then. It was a lonely and trying watch. The sick man moaned and jabbered, and whenever she touched the old coat he used for a pillow, he became quite frantic. Perhaps, as Jib intimated, there was something valuable hidden in the garment.
“Deeds—or money—perhaps both,” thought the girl nurse. “And maybe they relate to the Tintacker Mine. Perhaps if it is money it is some of Uncle’s money. Should I try to take it away from him secretly and keep it until he can explain?”
Yet she could not help from thinking that perhaps Jib was right in his diagnosis of the case. The man might be too far gone to save. Neither physician nor medicines might be able to retard the fever. It seemed to have already worn the unfortunate to his very skeleton. If he died, would the mystery of the Tintacker Mine, and of Uncle Jabez’s money, ever be explained?
Meanwhile she bathed and bathed again the fevered face and hands of the unfortunate. This was all that relieved him. He was quiet for some minutes after each of these attentions. The water in the bucket became warm, like that in the canteen. Ruth thought she could risk going to the rivulet for another supply. So she stuck the barrel of the gun into her belt and taking the empty pail set out to find the stream.
She closed the door of the sick man’s cabin very carefully. It was not far to the water and she had filled the pail and was returning when she heard a scratching noise nearby, and then a low growl. Casting swift glances of apprehension all about her, she started to run to the cabin;but when she got to the trail, it was at the cabin door the peril lay!
It was no harmless, cowardly coyote this time. Perhaps it had not been a coyote who had dug there when she and Jib rode up to the camp. She obtained this time a clear view of the beast.
It was long, lean and gray. A shaggy beast, with pointed ears and a long muzzle. When he turned and glared at her, growling savagely, Ruth was held spellbound in her tracks!
“A wolf!” she muttered. “A wolf at the door!”
The fangs of the beast were exposed. The jaws dripped saliva, and the eyes seemed blood-red. A more awful sight the girl had never seen. This fierce, hungry creature was even more terrifying in appearance than the bear that had chased her in the cañon. He seemed, indeed, more savage and threatening than the puma that Jib had roped that forenoon as they rode over to Tintacker.
He turned squarely and faced her. He was not afraid, but seemed to welcome her as an antagonist worthy of his prowess. He did not advance, but he stood between Ruth and the door of the sick man’s cabin. She might retreat, but in so doing she would abandon the unfortunate to his fate. And what that fate would be she could not doubt when once she had glimpsed the savage aspect of the wolf.
Ruth had already set down the bucket of water and drawn the heavy pistol from her belt. The girls had been trying their skill with six-shooters at the ranch at odd times, and she knew that she stood a good chance of hitting the big gray wolf at ten or twelve yards. The beast made no approach; but his intention of returning to the door of the cabin where the sick man lay, if she did not disturb him, was so plain that Ruth dared not desert the helpless patient!
The wolf crouched, growling and showing his fangs. If the girl approached too near he would spring upon her. Or, if she fired and wounded him but slightly she feared he would give chase and pull her down in a few seconds. She very well know that she could not hope to distance the beast if once he started to pursue her.
This was indeed a dreadful situation for a tenderly nurtured girl. The wolf looked to be fully as large as Tom Cameron’s mastiff, Reno. And Ruth wished with all her heart (as this comparisonflashed through her mind) that the mastiff was here to give battle to the savage beast.
But it were vain to think of such impossibilities. If anything was to be done to drive off the wolf at the cabin door, she must do it herself. Yet she dared not make the attack here in the open, and afoot. If she approached near enough to him to make her first shot sure and deadly, the beast gave every indication of opening the attack himself.
And, indeed, he might spring toward her at any moment. He was growing impatient. He had scented the helpless man inside the shack and—undisturbed—would soon burrow under the door and get at him. Although not so cowardly as a coyote, the wolf seldom attacks human beings unless they are helpless or the beast is driven to desperation by hunger. And gaunt as this fellow was, there was plenty of small game for him in the chapparel.
Thus, Ruth was in a quandary. But she saw plainly that she must withdraw or the wolf would attack. She left the bucket of water where it stood and withdrew back of the nearest hut. Once out of the wolf’s sight, but still holding the revolver ready, she looked hastily about. Her pony, hobbled by Jib, had not wandered far. Nor had Freckles seen or even scented the savage marauder.
Ruth spied him and crept away from the vicinity of the wolf, keeping in hiding all the time. She soon heard the beast clawing at the bottom of the door and growling. He might burst the door, or dig under it, any moment now!
The last few yards to the pony Ruth made at a run. Freckles snorted his surprise; but he knew her and was easily caught. The frightened girl returned the revolver to her belt and removed the hobbles. Then she vaulted into the saddle and jerked the pony’s head around, riding at a canter back toward the cabin.
The wolf heard her coming and drew his head and shoulders back out of the hole he had dug. In a few minutes more he would be under the door and into the cabin, which had, of course, no floor but the hard-packed clay. He started up and glared at the pony and its rider, and the pony began to side-step and snort in a manner which showed plainly that he did not fancy the vicinity of the beast.
“Whoa, Freckles! Steady, boy!” commanded Ruth.
The cow pony, trained to perfection, halted, with his fore feet braced, glaring at the wolf. Ruth dropped the reins upon his neck, and although he winced and trembled all over, he did not move from the spot as the girl raised the heavy pistol, resting its barrel across her leftforearm, and took the best aim she could at the froth-streaked chest of the wolf.
Even when the revolver popped, Freckles did not move. The wolf sprang to one side, snarling with rage and pain. Ruth saw a streak of crimson along his high shoulder. The bullet had just nicked him. The beast snapped at the wound and whirled around and around in the dust, snarling and clashing his teeth.
But when the girl tried to urge Freckles in closer, the wolf suddenly took the aggressive. He sprang out into the trail and in two leaps was beside the whirling pony. Freckles knew better than to let the beast get near enough to spring for his throat. But the pony’s gyrations almost unseated his rider.
Ruth fired a second shot; but the bullet went wild. She could not take proper aim with the pony dancing so; and she had to seize the lines again. She thrust the pistol into the saddle holster and grabbed the pommel of the saddle itself to aid her balance. Freckles pitched dreadfully, and struck out, seemingly with all four feet at once, to keep off the wolf. Perhaps it was as well that he did so, for the beast was maddened by the smart of the wound, and sought to tear the girl from her saddle.
As Ruth allowed the pony to run off from the shack for several rods, the wolf went growlingback to the door. He was a persistent fellow and it did seem as though he was determined to get at the sick man in spite of all Ruth could do.
But the girl, frightened as she was, had no intention of remaining by to see such a monstrous thing happen. She controlled Freckles again, and rode him hard, using the spurs, straight at the door of the shack. The wolf whirled and met them with open jaws, the saliva running from the sides of his mouth. His foreleg was now dyed crimson.
Freckles, squealing with anger, jumped to reach the wolf. He had been taught to ride down coyotes, and he tried the same tactics on this fellow. The wolf rolled over, snapping and snarling, and easily escaped the pony’s hard hoofs. But Ruth urged the pony on and the wolf was forced to run.
She tried her best to run him down. They tore through the main street of what had been Tintacker Camp, and out upon the open ridge. The wolf, his tail tucked between his legs, scurried over the ground, keeping just ahead, but circling around so as to get back to the abandoned town. He would not be driven from the vicinity.
“I must try again to shoot him,” exclaimed the girl, much worried. “If I ride back he will follow me. If I hobble Freckles again, he may attack the pony and Freckles could not defend himselfso well if he were hobbled. And if I turn the pony loose the wolf may run him off entirely!”
She drew Jib’s pistol once more and tried to get a good shot at the wolf. But while she did this she could not keep so sharp an eye on the course the pony took and suddenly Freckles sunk one forefoot in a hole.
He plunged forward, and Ruth came very near taking a dive over his head. She saved herself by seizing the pommel with both hands; but in so doing she lost the gun. Freckles leaped up, frightened and snorting, and the next moment the wolf had made a sharp turn and was almost under the pony’s feet!
The wolf let out an unmistakable yelp of pain and limped off, howling. Freckles kept on in pursuit and the revolver was soon far behind. The beast she pursued was now in a bad way; but the girl dared not ride back to search for her lost weapon. She did not propose that the wolf—after such a fight—should escape. Ruth was bent upon his destruction.
The wolf, however, dodged and doubled, so that the pony could not trample it, even had he wished to come to such close quarters. The clashing teeth of the savage animal warned Freckles to keep his distance, however; and it was plain to Ruth that she must dismount to finish the beast. If only she had some weapon——
What was that heap on the prairie ahead? Bones! hundreds of them! Some accident had befallen a bunch of cattle here in the past and their picked skeletons had been flung into a heap. The wolf ran for refuge behind this pile and Ruth immediately urged Freckles toward the spot.
She leaped from the saddle, tossing the bridle reins over his head upon the ground and ran to seize one of the bigger bones. It was the leg bone of a big steer and it made a promising club.
But even as she seized upon this primitive weapon the wolf made a final stand. He appeared around the far side of the pile. He saw that the girl was afoot, and with a snarl he sprang upon her.
Ruth uttered an involuntary shriek, and ran back. But she could not reach Freckles. The wolf’s hot breath steamed against her neck as she ran. He had missed her by a hair!
The girl whirled and faced him, the club poised in both her hands, determined to give battle. Her situation was perilous in the extreme. Afoot as she was, the beast had the advantage, and he knew this as well as she did. He did not hurry, but approached his victim with caution—fangs bared, jaws extended, his wounds for the moment forgotten.
There was no escape from the wolf’s attack, even had Ruth desired to evade the encounter. The beast’s flaming eyes showed his savage intention only too plainly. To turn and run at this juncture would have meant death for the brave girl. She stood at bay, the heavy bone poised to strike, and let the creature approach.
He leaped, and with all her strength—and that was not slight—she struck him. The wolf was knocked sideways to the ground. She followed up the attack with a second and a third blow before he could recover his footing.
The wound in his shoulder had bled a good deal, and Freckles’ hard hoofs had crippled one leg. He could not jump about with agility, and although he was no coward, he was slow in returning to the charge.
When he did, Ruth struck again, and with good effect. Again and again she beat him off. He once caught her skirt and tore it from the waist-binding; but she eluded his powerful clawsand struck him down again. Then, falling upon him unmercifully, she beat his head into the hard ground until he was all torn and bleeding and could not see to scramble at her.
It was an awful experience for the girl; but she conquered her antagonist before her strength was spent. When he lay, twitching his limbs in the final throes, she staggered back to where her pony stood and there, leaning upon his neck, sobbed and shook for several minutes, while Freckles put his soft nose into her palm and nuzzled her comfortably.
“Oh, oh, Freckles! what a terrible thing!” she sobbed. “He’s dead! he’s dead!”
She could say nothing more, nor could she recover her self-possession for some time. Then she climbed into the saddle and turned the pony’s head toward the deserted huts without once looking back at the blood-bedabbled body and the gory club.
At the camp, however, she was once more her own mistress. The fact that she must attend the sick man bolstered up her courage. She hobbled Freckles again and recovered the bucket of water. John Cox (if that was his name) raged in his fever and clutched at his precious coat, and was not quiet again until she had cooled his head and hands with the fresh water.
After that he fell into a light sleep and Ruthwent about the cabin, trying to set the poor furniture to rights and removing the debris that had collected in the corners. Every few moments she was at the door, looking out for either enemy or friend. But no other creature confronted her until the sound of pony hoofs delighted her ear and Tom Cameron and Jane Ann, with two of the cowboys from the Rolling River outfit, dashed up to the shack.
“Ruth! Ruth!” cried the ranchman’s niece, leaping off of her pony. “Come out of that place at once! Do as I tell you——”
“Don’t come here, dear—don’t touch me,” returned her friend, firmly. “I know what I am about. I mean to stay and nurse this man. I do not believe there is so much danger as Jib says——”
“Uncle Bill will have his hide!” cried Jane Ann, indignantly. “You wait and see.”
“It is not his fault. I came in here when he could not stop me. And I mean to remain. But there is no use in anybody else being exposed to contagion—if there is any contagion in the disease.”
“Why, it’s as bad as small-pox, Ruth!” cried Jane Ann.
“I am here,” returned Ruth, quietly. “Have you brought us food? And is that spirits in the bottle Mr. Darcy has?”
“Yes, Miss,” said the cowboy.
“Set it down on that stone—and the other things. I’ll come and get it. A few drops of the liquor in the water may help the man a little.”
“But, dear Ruth,” interposed Tom, gravely, “he is nothing to you. Don’t run such risks. If the man must be nursedI’lltry my hand——”
“Indeed you shall not!”
“It’s a job for a man, Miss,” said Darcy, grimly. “You mount your pony and go home with the others. I’ll stay.”
“If any harm is done, it’s done already,” declared the girl, earnestly. “One of you can stay outside and help me—guard me, if you please. There’s been an awful old wolf about——”
“A wolf!” gasped Tom.
“But I killed him.” She told them how and where. “And I lost Jib’s gun. He’ll be furious.”
“He’ll lose more than his little old Colts,” growled the second cowboy.
“It was not Jib’s fault,” declared the girl. “I could not so easily find my way back to the river as he. I had to stay while he went for help. Has word been sent on to the ranch?”
“Everything will be done that can be done for the fellow, of course,” Jane Ann declared. “Uncle Bill will likely come over himself. Then therewillbe ructions, young lady.”
“And what will Helen and the other girls say?” cried Tom.
“I wish I had thought,” murmured Ruth. “I would have warned Jib not to let Mary know.”
“What’s that?” asked Tom, in surprise, for he had but imperfectly caught Ruth’s words.
“Never mind,” returned the girl from the Red Mill, quickly.
The others were discussing what should be done. Ruth still stood in the doorway and now a murmur from the bed called her turn back into the shack to make the unfortunate on the couch more comfortable—for in his tossings he became more feverish and hot. When she returned to the outer air the others had decided.
“Darcy and I will remain, Ruth,” Tom said, with decision. “We’ll bring the water, and cook something for you to eat out here, and stand guard, turn and turn about. But you are a very obstinate girl.”
“As long as one is in for it, why increase the number endangered by the fever?” she asked, coolly. “You are real kind to stay, Tom—you and Darcy.”
“You couldn’t get me away with a Gatling gun,” said Tom, grimly. “You knowthat, Ruth.”
“I know I have a staunch friend in you, Tommy,” she said, in a low voice.
“One you can trust?”
“To be sure,” she replied, smiling seriously at him.
“Then what is all this about Mary Cox? What hasshegot to do with the fellow you’ve got hived up in that shack?” shot in Master Tom, shrewdly.
“Oh, now, Tommy!” gasped Ruth.
“You can’t fool me, Ruth——”
“Sh! don’t let the others hear you,” she whispered. “And don’t come any nearer, Tom!” she added, warningly, and in a louder tone.
“But The Fox has something to do with this man?” demanded Tom.
“I believe so. I fear so. Oh, don’t ask me any more!” breathed the girl, anxiously, as Jane Ann and the cowboy rode up to say good-bye.
“I hope nothing bad will come of this, Ruth,” said the ranch girl. “But Uncle Bill will be dreadfully mad.”
“Not with me, I hope,” rejoined Ruth, shaking her head.
“And all the girls will be crazy to come out here and help you nurse him.”
“They certainlywillbe crazy if they want to,” muttered Tom.
“They would better not come near here until the man gets better—if he everdoesget better,” added Ruth, in a low tone.
“I expect they’ll all want to come,” repeated Jane Ann.
“Don’t you let them, Jane Ann!” admonished Ruth. “Above all, don’t you let Mary Cox come over here—unless I send for her,” and she went into the shack again and closed the door.